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An unnamed no-man’s zone within Gehenna.

Claire Asmodeus crouched deep inside a maple forest, grinding her teeth, holding her breath.

The plan had worked.

But calling it a complete success would be an overstatement—it was only a half-baked victory.

First off, once she slipped past the borders, it hadn’t been hard to track down Shin Siwoo using her bat familiar.

The aquarium’s function was simple.

Just charge it with mana, throw it, and any human within a five-meter radius gets sucked right in.

So instead of tailing him herself and risking getting caught, Claire had chosen to use her familiar, dropping it like a bomb from a drone.

If everything had gone smoothly, Siwoo would’ve been swallowed by the trap and she’d vanish without leaving even a whisper behind...

But that’s where things fell apart.

He was with Deneb Gemini.

That alone cut the effectiveness of the aquarium in half.

If it had been just some half-assed calling himself a witch, she could have dealt with him easily. But that was a whole different story if a countess was involved.

Even though she wasn’t at full power without her twin, it didn’t change the fact that she was a formidable opponent.

But by the time Claire belatedly issued the command to halt the drop, the bat had already thrown the aquarium.

So now, after dragging herself all the way into Gehenna, there was a real chance she’d walk away empty-handed.

Honestly, it was entirely Claire’s fault.

Even though she had limited her own power to erase her presence, layered on concealment spells to prevent tracking, and as a result, had sacrificed some control over her familiar, but in the end, failing to command her familiar properly was still on her.

Of course, rather than admit that, Claire was the type to blame the familiar instead.

“You fucking bird-brained idiot!”

For the record, bats were mammals.

But the damage was already done—the arrow had left the bow.

And now, it had struck an unintended target: a Counteess.

Staying any longer wouldn’t fix things, so her only goal now was to get out of Gehenna in one piece.

Even if the plan had partially failed, she had been careful enough that the chance of anyone detecting her illegal entry was nearly zero.

The smuggler she’d baited with illusion magic had already told her the next ship out was in three days.

Now that those three days had passed without anyone sniffing her out, all she had to do was crawl out of this miserable hole and head for Border Town once the sun set.

Claire rolled around the cave, grumbling.

“Bianca....”

Out of nowhere, that love-hate ghost of her past surfaced in her mind.

If it were her, who was more ruthless, prudent, and cruel than anyone else, she would have succeeded in this kind of thing very easily.

Claire could almost hear the dry, mocking voice in her head: ‘See? That’s all you’re good for.’

“Shut up. I’ve got my own way.”

She shook her head to clear the echo and crawled out of the makeshift tunnel she’d dug as her hideout.

Covered in dirt from lying in a cramped hole for three straight days, Claire’s red hair looked like a mess of blood-soaked soil. Honestly, she looked ridiculous

In fact, Claire was one of the strongest among the criminal exiles.

21st rank. Master of every flavor of combat-tuned self-essence magic.

Claire herself doesn’t admit it, but there were many public enemies aiming for her because of her somewhat sloppy behavior.

Yet, she had survived. From the moment she inherited her brand, she had walked a blood-soaked path, accumulating hard-earned experience on countless battlefields.

The reason Claire resorted to such cumbersome means from illegal entry to hiding was that this was the “City of Witches.”

And witches were practically religious about their magic.

They staked their very lives across generations in pursuit of that power.

Which is exactly why no one would’ve expected a criminal exile to dig a hole and hide underground.

Sometimes the dumbest move really was the smartest one.

Sure enough, after three days, she breathed the cool air again, and there wasn’t a whiff of anyone nearby.

-Caw!

At the sudden caw, Claire, who’d been carefully scanning her surroundings, turned her head sharply.

A raven perched on a maple branch, twisting its head back and forth.

“Fuck, that scared the hell outta me...”

Already on edge, Claire muttered a curse and pressed a hand against her chest, trying to calm her racing heart.

But the relief didn’t last long.

She realized that the nictitating membrane of the raven’s eye was staring directly at her.

It was an unpleasantly black eye.

-Flap! Flap! Flap!

One raven, then another.

As she watched ravens flocking around, Claire immediately sensed that something was wrong.

Ravens that acted in groups were curious and highly intelligent.

But this blatant gathering and silent observation, not a warning sound when their territory is invaded, was clearly abnormal.

“Damn it...!”

All these ravens were familiars.

In other words, someone had found Her.

The moment she realized it, Claire flicked her fingertips, scattering droplets of blood like shotgun pellets, blasting the ravens away.

-CAW! CAW! CAW!

Dozens of them were slaughtered instantly by magic, their black feathers tumbling down into the snow-covered forest.

As their cries echoed, a swarm darkened the sky between the branches she peered through.

“...What the fuck.”

But the thing that truly made Claire tense up wasn’t the endless swarm of ravens sweeping across Gehenna’s sky.

Something was approaching with the turbulent wind.

The huge storm could be felt even without seeing it, its presence vividly felt despite being quite a distance away.

A presence wrapped in tremendous mana approached without even trying to hide.

The forest trembled under the force of the raging winds.

Amid the storm that howled ominously, a witch landed gracefully before Claire, who was gathering her mana.

“.......”

Just standing before her, every hair on Claire’ body stood on end.

She had felt this before—back when she caught a glimpse of Duchess Tiphereth’s merciless hunt.

She felt the overwhelming wall that could not be narrowed by any means.

Long, golden-blonde hair and sky-blue eyes.

The witch, reminiscent of a fairy with her chilling beauty, wore an expression that sent shivers down her spine.

Yet even without a single word spoken, the raw fury radiating from her was unmistakable.

Claire recognized her.

She was one of the people Bianca had taken an interest in—someone connected to Shin Siwoo.

Amelia Marigold, the Witch of Perfume.

But there was something that Claire did not quite understand.

Although there was information about her in the materials collected by Bianca, it hadn’t been given much weight.

In fact, Claire had heard juicier gossip just by eavesdropping. ‘That the Witch of Perfume had caused such a ruckus in Gehenna she got stripped of her baron title’.

Still, she found it hard to imagine why she would show up like this, fully prepared for a confrontation.

“What the hell do you want?”

Claire listed possibilities that she had not considered.

Maybe she and Siwoo were closer than she thought.

The possibility that Shin Siwoo and Deneb Gemini had broken the aquarium and told her the situation.

But the information was too lacking to grasp the situation to this extent.

“I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but—”

Since they hadn’t started fighting yet, she had to buy time with conversation and look for an opening to escape.

“Wail.”

Contrary to her hopes, the Witch of Perfume didn’t ask or demand anything.

Instead, she chanted, and a pale blue gleam flickered in her eyes, and rain poured down on the area like a shower.

“You crazy bitch! Use your words! Overflow, O Crimson blood!”

Claire wasn’t about to take this lying down.

She immediately released the seal on the magical blood in her entire body.

The blood she’d kept locked down to avoid detection now raged inside her, feeding strength to every part of her body.

Claire’ self-essence magic, as befitting her title as the True Ancestor Witch, was rooted in blood as its medium.

The mana blood coursing through her veins was no ordinary fluid.

It was Blood Essence—refined and distilled from the blood of hundreds, just for a single drop.

That drop, packed with raw power and life force, surged through her body, pushing her physical form far beyond what any normal spirit body could withstand.

Her bloodstream accelerated.

Pale skin stretched tight over veins glowing blue, and her eyes flushed a fierce red, making the world slow down like a frame-by-frame reel.

In that split second, as she pounced like a wild beast, Claire formed a dagger in her hand.

This dagger, with its thin, blood-colored blade, was also made of her blood.

Her nerves had been on edge facing such a strong opponent, but now that she had the first strike, fear and tension slipped away.

She had secured the perfect distance.

With zero waste in motion, her clean strike flew straight for the exposed back of her enemy’s neck.

In this moment, rushing at an enemy that appeared defenseless, she was certain of victory.

She’d brought down plenty of witches before with this same blade, laced with poison-level lethality.

“Die!”

The dagger slashed through the air and rammed into the slender throat.

Only then did Claire realize her judgment had been premature.

The body shattered like broken glass.

The figure of the enemy Claire aimed for was not the main body, but a clone meticulously crafted from fine particles.

Even as her attack failed, Claire remained composed and immediately prepared to retreat from the battlefield.

-BANG!!!

As her legs, charged with superhuman strength, slammed into the ground, it exploded like a TNT blast going off underfoot.

A sonic boom ripped through, shaking the forest like a storm.

It wasn’t even an attack—just the raw blowback from her launching herself.

“Almost fucked myself there!”

She hadn’t fully escaped yet, but it bought her a few breaths.

If she could find cover, mask her presence, and slip out of Gehenna, she might just make it.

-Snap!

“The hell...?”

But just as Claire darted past the edge of the forest, she heard a crisp, high-pitched snapping sound

That shouldn’t have been possible.

She was moving faster than sound, after all.

Then she figured out the creepy noise came from ‘inside’ her.

“Gah!”

Something pure and sharp surged through her body, and she lost control mid-flight, crashing hard into the forest floor.

She was instantly stripped of all control over her mana.

“Cough... nnngh...!”

No matter how hard she tried to draw mana back, it leaked away like trying to fill a cracked jug.

Only then did Claire realize that the Witch of Perfume had already cast her spell.

Since the moment she had appeared, the rain had been pouring down.

There hadn’t been any obvious magical trace, so Claire hadn’t caught on. But the moment it touched her, the spell had taken hold.

To wield such a powerful spell so stealthily.

Just as that thought horrified her, the Witch of Perfume stepped into view.

Claire, sunk in the mud, looked up at her with shaking eyes.

And the second their eyes met, a wave of chills raced down her spine.

A contemptuous, ruthless gaze that showed no mercy or forgiveness.

The aura of a queen who would crush you without pause, even after you were broken in both body and mind.

“Wail.”

With absolute calm, the Witch of Perfume parted her lips.

The second incantation fell from her tongue, and wildflowers started blooming from every raindrop that touched the ground.

It was beautiful.

Devastatingly beautiful.

And that was the last thought Claire had before her consciousness was torn away.